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“Don’t worry about it. I’m not offended.”
“Okay. So let’s go see him before I say anything else stupid.”
“Tio Duncan!” a young male voice called out, seconds before a little body launched himself at Duncan. He caught the young man up in his arms with a laugh.
“Pablo! ¿Como está?”
Duncan spoke in a mixture of Spanish and English to the little boy, then turned to Rebel. “Pablo, this is my friend, Rebel. She’s a nurse and helped me to take care of Great-grandpa last night.”
“Gracias, amiga.” He leaned over and pulled Rebel into a one-armed hug from his perch in Duncan’s arms. “Is Great-grandpa okay?”
“We’re going to check on him right now. He’ll be just fine, you’ll see.”
“Come here, monkey.” Another male voice approached them from behind, and Pablo released his stranglehold on Rebel’s neck. The little boy reached for the man Rebel assumed was his father, who placed him on the floor. “Go find your cousins.” Pablo raced off toward a small table set up for the young ones, heedless of the art and artifacts on nearby tables.
A man about the same age as Duncan approached. Instinctively, Rebel drew back a little. The man was intense with eyes that seemed to look deep down inside her.
“Rey, stop scaring her.” He gave a handshake, a fist bump and a hug to the man, then turned to Rebel. “He’s a cop and likes to intimidate everyone.”
“Well, it worked.” A hesitant smile covered Rebel’s face. “I’m Rebel Taylor.”
Rey shook her hand and the cop eyes disappeared as he gave her the once-over in obvious appreciation. “Nice to meet you, Rebel.” Then he pulled her into a quick, unexpected hug. “Thank you for helping him last night. He’s a tough old bird, but I don’t know what we’d do without him.”
“Hey man, back off. She’s taken, and you’re married.” Duncan tapped his cousin on the shoulder.
“Okay, fine.” He reached for a plate, more focused on the food than Rebel.
“We’re going to check on him. Don’t eat everything before we get back.” Duncan gave his cousin a warning.
“No guarantees.” He took a plate from the large stack and got into the line behind his relatives.
“Come on. I’m sure he’s been waiting on us since dawn.”
“He’s an early riser, then?”
Duncan snorted. “Late to bed, gets up early, I don’t know how he does it at his age.”
After a quick knock on the bedroom door, Duncan pressed down on the handle and pushed the door wide.
“About damned time you two came to see me. I could be dead a week before you’d know.” His booming voice thundered through the room.
Duncan grinned. “I see you’ve survived your night and are back to your usual charming self.”
Rebel hid a smile and bit her lips together. It was good to see the man’s coloring had improved, the oxygen was nowhere in sight, and he was dressed and ready for the day.
“Charming?” He offered a crooked smile and a foxy gleam in his eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called charming in my life.”
“You can be sure of that!” Lupe said from the bathroom. “He’s never even pretended to be charming as long as I’ve known him. Maybe my English word is not right, but cantankerous sounds good.”
At that, Duncan laughed out loud and met Rebel’s gaze. There was something in that moment, a shared intimacy that tugged at Rebel’s heart. Then it occurred to her. She was building memories with Duncan. Her heart thumped and her breath hitched. Looking into his eyes, with the laugh lines fanning outward, she knew she was falling for him much harder than she’d ever expected.
Then, in seconds, the moment was gone as he turned to Rafael.
“Let’s have a look at you.” Duncan opened the medical kit beside the bed and extracted the stethoscope, listened to his heart and lungs and gave a sharp nod. “All that fluid you had in your lungs is gone.”
“It damned well better be. I spent half the night in the toilet.” He glared at Rebel, but she only raised her brows.
“Yes?”
“No thanks to you.” He held his hard stare at her.
“I didn’t do anything.” The stare was returned with equal intensity. She could handle herself again this morning, and he wasn’t going to shake her up like he had yesterday.
“You gave me that medicine.” He glared harder, but she was nonplussed.
Rebel snorted and nodded at Duncan. “He told me to!”
Rafael snorted right back. “And you do everything he tells you to?”
“Not hardly. But it was the right thing to do at the time.” She raised her chin, holding his gaze, and her confidence strengthened.
Rafael held a hand out to her, and she crossed the room to take it. “Thank you, my dear. I appreciate your help.” He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “You’ve made an old man feel good again.” He gave a sigh. “And I do apologize for my behavior yesterday. It was uncalled for, and I hope you accept my deepest regrets. Maybe, if you come back, we can have a better time.”
Her gaze sought Duncan, and he stood there, his mouth hanging slightly open. A piercing wail from the bathroom drew their immediate attention. Lupe stood, holding her apron over her face, sobbing into her hands.
“Lupe, what’s wrong?” Rebel released Rafael’s hand to comfort the woman.
“Why didn’t you tell me he’s going to die?” She covered her face again and sobbed her heart out.
“No, he’s not. Why would you say that?” In desperation, Rebel looked at Duncan for help.
CHAPTER TEN (#uae9fe1b6-71bd-54f7-a982-ee012a3dfc84)
“HE’S NOT DYING.” Blandly, Duncan confirmed her statement.
“But…he’s being…nice, he apologized, he never does that!”
Rebel gave an eye-roll and then looked at Rafael. “You really should be nicer.”
“Why? She’d cry more then.” He glared at Lupe, but softened it with a little smile and held out his hand to her. “Come here, woman. I’m fine.”
“Oh, please, everyone. It’s just fine. He’s fine, and I’m starving.” Duncan took Rebel’s hand and led her to the door. “Come out so no one thinks you’re dying, okay?”
Rafael just grinned. The old goat.
“He’s such a pain sometimes.” Duncan shook his head but his touch on her was gentle as he took her to the table. They made their way along the line, filling their plates, and Duncan introduced her to entirely too many people. Their names would never stick in her brain, she was certain of it.
After lingering over the meal and sharing coffee with the family out on the portál, Lupe approached Duncan and Rebel.
“The clinic is set up.”
“Clinic, what clinic?” Rebel had no idea what they were talking about.
“When I come for a visit, I run a health clinic for a few hours. These folks are the poorest of the poor, most of them come from Old Mexico and have never had regular health or dental care. They have issues stemming from lifelong malnutrition and chronic illnesses. We hope we can help them out and the children that are born here will be better cared for right from the start.”
“I didn’t know any of this.” She frowned. New Mexico was not a developing country, but what he was describing certainly sounded like it. “Most people I come into contact with in the ER have health insurance.”
“These folks don’t.” He shrugged and looked away, but she could tell he cared deeply about these people who worked on his family ranch. “Some of these folks have worked here their entire lives. Poverty, lack of education, and cultural biases have kept them this way. Slowly, we’re helping change their outlook. The kids are blossoming.” He tried to hide it, but a burst of pride pulled his shoulders back. “We even have a daycare and an elementary school on the ranch.”
“That’s amazing.” She leaned I closer to him. “I’m so proud of what you are doing here.” Truly she was. She’d never met a man like Duncan.
“I wish we could do more, but there aren’t enough resources and it’s a seasonal business.”
“Well, what can we do today?” Doing things for others had always helped keep her focus off her family tragedy and doing good works never went out of style.
“Let’s go see what the troops have set up.” Duncan took her hand in his firm grip and led her out to the staging area.
“During chili season we use this open-air shed to roast the chili and get it ready for locals. There’s nothing fresher than produce just picked and roasted within a few hours. Today I have a clinic in it.”
“So, what kinds of health issues do you see with your workers?” Though she’d worked in the ER for years, farming accidents weren’t something she’d had a lot of experience with.
“A lot of things are farming related, like cuts and other injuries sustained from using heavy machinery. Other things are minor, like tetanus shots, or colds and flu.” He shrugged. “The usual stuff.”
“You do good work, here, Duncan.” Indeed. He was not just some pretty face playing around at being a doctor. He had a heart dedicated to service to others that was very appealing to her.
“I’d like to do more of it, but at the moment there’s just not enough of me to go around.” That brought some pain to him. This was a group of people who could use his skills, not the people who held fund-raisers and had never set foot in a barrio.
They stepped around the large machine shed to a line of people that looked a mile long and her eyes widened. “Wow. That’s a lot of people.”
“I know.” He grinned. “Not doing anything else the rest of the day, are you?” He patted her shoulder, then let his hand linger there for a second. She was so different from women he’d known. That little alarm inside him started to go off, reminding him again that she could leave him at any moment and he’d best not set himself up for getting hurt again. Then he shook it off, reminding himself there was work to do now.
“Uh, no. No, I’m not.” She straightened her shoulders, ready for whatever would come up. She was an experienced ER nurse. She could handle whatever they had. Except…“I don’t speak Spanish. What do you want me to do?”
“The boys will help with translation for you. You can start with vital signs and triage, get a little info, then send them over to me. You’re over there.” He pointed to a long table where hand sanitizer, index cards for writing down information, and a blood-pressure cuff lay.
Duncan’s area even had a screen so people would have some semblance of privacy.
Jake and Judd stood by, ready to help with translation. With a last look at Duncan as he walked away, she put on her best nurse smile and accepted the first patient into her triage station.
They spent about four hours on mundane issues before a patient of concern surfaced. As Duncan had foretold, the majority of the issues were farm related or other minor complaints. Then a boy with a serious face was plunked down into the chair by his father.
“Hi, there.” Her welcoming smile faded. Usually she liked working with pediatric patients because they always had some interesting take on their situation or made up a grand and glorious tale about their injuries.
But not this.
Something was seriously wrong about his situation. She didn’t know what, but, watching the boy interact with his father, she knew something was off.
This little boy of about six years old was too thin for his age and bone structure. His hair had been cropped very short, as was the custom, but she could see scratch marks on his scalp, and a little bald spot where the hair was worn away. The child didn’t look at her but kept his eyes downcast, a sure sign of insecurity. He was not as frisky as the other children. Then the boy looked up at her and his eyes widened, fixating on her red hair that the wind had begun to tease from its clip.
“What’s the problem?” she asked his father, who had distant black eyes. He made eye contact but dropped his gaze quickly.
“He…no…” Frustrated with his attempt at English, he launched into a monologue in Spanish about the boy’s problems, pointed to the bald spot on his head and then at the boy’s back.
“His father says that he’s always hurting himself, falling down or tripping, and then the spot on his head, he keeps rubbing it, and if he doesn’t stop is going to be bald before he’s seven years old.”
A smile curved up her lips at that last statement. “It’s okay. He won’t be bald, but we do have to figure out the reason he’s rubbing the spot.” She held out a piece of candy to him. First his gaze flashed to his father, then he accepted it and focused on unwrapping the little sweet. “Kids his age, especially boys, are accident prone. They run full blast and don’t see the hazards, so he’ll stop falling if he stops running so fast.” She waited while Judd interpreted that part.
“What’s your name?”
“Alejandro.” He bobbed his head politely.
“Is his mother here? I could talk to her about some things she can do to help keep him calm, from a woman’s perspective.” She’d had lots of training in pediatrics, and now seemed a good time to share some of it.
Judd hunkered over and whispered to her. “Mother’s not in the picture. Died last year. He’s raising the boy alone.”
A sick feeling turned in Rebel’s gut. No child should have to suffer the loss of a parent at that age. She knew exactly what it was like. An ache formed inside her, and she just wanted to reach out, gather the little boy against her and never let go of him. He was an innocent victim and his injuries may have been an attempt to gain his father’s attention.
“Let me check him and listen to his lungs, look at his injuries and then we’ll have the doctor look at him, too.” She set about her tasks, but when she placed the stethoscope on his back he winced and cried out.
Rebel pulled up his shirt to look at his back. “Oh!” She nearly cried out in pain for the boy. “What happened?” She shot a questioning look at the father. “This time.”
“He fell from the high loft in the hay barn,” Judd translated. “He and the other kids were playing a game, and he lost his grip on the rope and fell.”
“You’re kidding, right?” She reached for the boy’s hands. Healing rope burns gave evidence to Pedro’s explanation. With a shake of her head, she took Alejandro’s chin in her hand and gently tilted his face up until he looked at her. He blinked, as if coming back to himself, and rolled the candy around in his mouth until he’d tucked it into one cheek. “You have to be more careful, little man. You hurt yourself too much.”
After Judd had interpreted for the boy, he shrugged. “I…okay,” he said, demonstrating some understanding of English.
“You can hurt yourself doing things like that.”
He only grinned and resumed playing with the candy in his mouth.
“If his mother is…gone, then what does he do during the day? Who takes care of him?”
The father offered an explanation, which was then translated. “He goes to school during the day, then comes home and one of the neighbor kids looks out for him while Pedro is still working. He won’t stay in the daycare.”
Rebel couldn’t help but imagine what she would do if she were closer at hand. Children were at risk for injuries and death if left unsupervised as they didn’t have the capacity to determine risk compared to what the perceived fun would be. She pressed her lips together and tried to resist the primal mothering urge that had begun to surface. If only…
“Pedro says he doesn’t know what to do with him. The boy won’t stay in the house after school, just runs and runs and runs as soon as he’s off the bus. That’s why he’s so skinny.” Judd listened again to Pedro. “He wants to know if there is a medicine or something Duncan can give him to make him behave better.”
“I’m sorry, Pedro. This isn’t a matter of medication, but may be the only way for him to express his grief at the loss of his mother.” Pedro nodded, opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, then pressed his lips firmly together and turned away. Rebel could see the frustration and anger in him. “Children often need to cry in order to get those feelings they don’t understand out of them.”
Pedro pointed at his son, anger blazing in his eyes. “No cry. He no cry.” He launched into another explanation to Judd.
“When Pedro’s wife died, it was because she was an alcoholic. He doesn’t want Alejandro to cry for a woman who chose the bottle over them.”
So misunderstood. Grief had grabbed this family by the throat and hadn’t let go. They needed to be in counseling, but how to suggest it to a man still entrenched in the angry phase of grief was beyond her comprehension.
“Duncan, I need your help.” Though she spoke to him, she busied herself with taking Alejandro’s blood pressure.
